Devices and/or systems employing multi-camera arrays have traditionally been used for various computer vision applications including depth extraction, temporal resolution, and high dynamic range.
Ideally, a camera array's geometric pattern allows for efficient sampling of the light from a scene (often called the “light field”). Further, the separation of cameras within the array can provide the basis for depth calculations in, for example, stereo vision depth extraction applications. In such applications, the number of cameras and the angle between the cameras in the array can affect the accuracy of any corresponding depth map. Similarly, geometric characteristics of a multi-camera array can impact sampling a scene for time (e.g., high-speed cameras) and light intensity (e.g. high dynamic range).
Traditional camera arrays typically take the form of a one-dimensional strip of cameras or a two-dimensional rectangular grid of cameras where the individual cameras are arranged orthogonally with respect to each other. Some existing approaches employ cameras arrayed on a convex hull. However, these existing approaches either tend to have insufficient overlapping fields of view between individual cameras in the array, or exhibit redundancy and/or occlusions resulting in less than desirable efficiency and/or robustness.